Archive for Julio Urias

The Dodgers Julio Urias is done for the year, and probably most of next season, with a torn Anterior Capsule – a devastating shoulder injury. The anterior capsule is a combination of ligaments which provide stability to the shoulder. Have you ever heard someone state that they had “a frozen shoulder”? Well, frozen shoulders (or, adhesive capsulitis), is impingement of that same capsule, and it results in huge range of motion loss, and incredible discomfort. You can imagine how damage to that structure would be catastrophic to a pitcher.

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It’s been a weird week for me, delaying this article by four days. I originally intended to have this up by Monday, but a spontaneous — and completely awesome — decision to attend the NCAA Tournament provided the first delay. I got to see Oklahoma/VCU and the historically unprecedented Texas A&M win over Northern Iowa, so I didn’t feel too bad about being a day late.

Unfortunately, I got myself concussed in a fender-bender the next day (not my fault!), and spent the last few days listlessly staring out my window, the owner of a half-working brain. Hopefully, I’ve recovered enough for the following to make sense, but the fact that my 31st birthday looms this coming Monday means I’m in the midst of my annual birthday-related existential crisis, brain injury or not.

Regardless of the circumstances, it’s Bold Predictions time! I did pretty darn well two years ago, but last year my success rate was roughly equivalent to that of the Brooklyn Brawler. (Fun fact: The Brawler briefly performed in WWF as “The MVP” Abe Knuckleball Schwartz, a bad-guy persona used to rile up fans during the MLB strike of ’94.) Let’s turn the clock back to 2014 and get my boldness rate back to the sweet spot.

Here are my ten Bold Predictions for 2016, roughly arranged in ascending order from safest to craziest:

10. James Shields is not a top-65 starting pitcher, despite throwing 200+ innings for the tenth straight year.

How do we value a 34-year-old coming off a season like Shields just had? He logged over 200 innings and made his annual 33 starts, but posted his worst-ever walk rate — and it’s not even close — at 3.60 BB/9. His HR/FB ballooned to another career worst, at 17.6%. Shields also experienced career bests in two areas, strikeouts (yay!) and strand rate (hmm…).

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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

For most teams, the offseason loss of a superstar pitcher like Zack Greinke would be crippling. The Dodgers are not most teams. After posting a miniscule 1.66 earned run average in 222.2 innings in LA last season, Greinke headed within the division to Arizona, with $200+ million coming his way over the next six years. Despite his departure, the Dodgers are the favorites to take down the NL West again this season, holding a six-game advantage in our projected standings.

Obviously, the Dodgers still have Clayton Kershaw. Most teams are not blessed to have even one true ace, not to mention two of them. Still, instead of standing pat, the club reloaded, adding Scott Kazmir and Kenta Maeda to bolster the rotation. After four disastrous seasons that led many to consider Kazmir’s career essentially finished, the now-32-year-old resurrected his career in a big way, delivering three consecutive solid campaigns. While he’s not the strikeout machine he was a decade ago, Kazmir provides a steady veteran presence in the rotation, averaging over 30 starts in each of the last three years.

The right-handed Maeda is an unknown quantity heading into his first season in America, which led our own Eno Sarris to search for a comp. If Eno’s analysis is sound — and I’ll go ahead and trust that it is, seeing as Eno probably knows approximately 5,386 times more about the game of baseball than I do — the 27-year-old Maeda looks to be an Aaron Nola type. There’s plenty of value to be found in a steady mid-rotation arm with upside, and that’s what he seems to be. (In an interesting twist, Maeda is the only righty expected to make the Dodgers’ Opening Day rotation.)

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